In the past nail clippers have been conventionally employed for clipping finger and toe nails having an elongated pair of cutting blades fastened together at the rear end and using a spring action and an operating lever to cut nails. The clippings fly in random direction and have been a problem with regard to the collection thereof. These clippings are expelled from the rear of the cutting blades and through the opening at the sides thereof. Devices have been proposed for the retention of the nail clippings such as in Killen U.S. Pat. No. 2,829,433 and Killen U.S. Pat. No. 2,887,773. These nail clipper cutting retainers cover the side plates of a cutter blades but the retainers are not readily removable and have no function as a tweezer.
By means of this invention there has been provided a nail clipping retainer and tweezer which is very simply adapted for use with conventional nail clippers of the type described. The retainer of this invention is very simply designed for use with the conventional nail clipper by V-shaped arms which are movable together and held by a biasing action against the sides of the bottommost cutter blade. The engaging action is accomplished by inturned flanges and inturned dimple-like guide elements spaced above the flanges which receives the opposed sides of the bottommost cutter blade of the clipper so that the retainer is held tightly thereagainst. The retainer is very simply disengaged from the clipper by means of an enlarged finger receiving portion at the top of the free ends of the retainer arms which receives a finger nail of the user for easy grasping of the arms for spreading apart. The spreading apart effects disengagement from the clipper for emptying nail clippings.
The V-shaped retainer arms further serve as a tweezer. The front of the arms are tapered and turned inwardly which enhance the use as a tweezer. The free ends of the retainer arms through their tapering and turned inward construction further serve to close the space between the front of the cutting blades to retain the clippings and also to closely bear against the clipper by the spring or biasing action of the V-shaped arm construction. The retainer is simply retained on a key ring when it is disengaged from the clipper. This construction is accomplished by the inturned flanges to provide a narrow throat at the rear portion of the retainer which receives a key ring in an enlarged opening. The retainer arms are simply spread apart to enlarge the throat from the key ring blocking position to a key ring passing position.
Objects of this invention will appear in the detailed description which follows and will be otherwise apparent to those skilled in the art.
For the purpose of illustration of this invention there is shown in the accompanying drawings a preferred embodiment thereof. It is to be understood that these drawings are for the purpose of illustration only and that the invention is not limited thereto.